Lamezia Terme is a city and a commune in the
province of CatanzaroThe Province of Catanzaro is a province of the Calabria region, in Italy. The city of Catanzaro is capital both of the province and of the region....
(
CalabriaCalabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian peninsula. It is bounded to the north by the region of Basilicata, to the south-west by the region of Sicily, to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and to the east by the...
) in
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
. It is the major city on the
Tyrrhenian SeaThe Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy.It is bounded by Corsica and Sardinia , Tuscany, Lazio, Campania, and Calabria , and Sicily .The maximum depth of the sea is ....
side of Italy in the 500 km-stretch from
SalernoSalerno is a small city in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....
to
Reggio CalabriaReggio di Calabria , commonly known as Reggio Calabria or Reggio, is a city located in southern Italy and the capital of the Province of Reggio Calabria. It is the largest and oldest city in the region and is the second oldest city in Italy overall...
.
Lamezia is 35 km from
CatanzaroCatanzaro , also known as the city of the two seas, is an Italian city of 96.000 inhabitants and the capital of the Calabria region and of its province....
, 70 km from
CosenzaCosenza is a city in Italy, located at the confluence of two rivers: the Busento and the Crathis. The municipal population is of around 70,000. The urban area, however, counts over 260,000 inhabitants....
and 135 km from
Reggio CalabriaReggio di Calabria , commonly known as Reggio Calabria or Reggio, is a city located in southern Italy and the capital of the Province of Reggio Calabria. It is the largest and oldest city in the region and is the second oldest city in Italy overall...
. The city is site on the eastern border of the coastal plain commonly called Piana di Sant'Eufemia, in the middle of the Calabrian coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, which was created by drying a wide marshy area.
Lamezia Terme is a city and a commune in the
province of CatanzaroThe Province of Catanzaro is a province of the Calabria region, in Italy. The city of Catanzaro is capital both of the province and of the region....
(
CalabriaCalabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian peninsula. It is bounded to the north by the region of Basilicata, to the south-west by the region of Sicily, to the west by the Tyrrhenian Sea, and to the east by the...
) in
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
. It is the major city on the
Tyrrhenian SeaThe Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy.It is bounded by Corsica and Sardinia , Tuscany, Lazio, Campania, and Calabria , and Sicily .The maximum depth of the sea is ....
side of Italy in the 500 km-stretch from
SalernoSalerno is a small city in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....
to
Reggio CalabriaReggio di Calabria , commonly known as Reggio Calabria or Reggio, is a city located in southern Italy and the capital of the Province of Reggio Calabria. It is the largest and oldest city in the region and is the second oldest city in Italy overall...
.
Geography
Lamezia is 35 km from
CatanzaroCatanzaro , also known as the city of the two seas, is an Italian city of 96.000 inhabitants and the capital of the Calabria region and of its province....
, 70 km from
CosenzaCosenza is a city in Italy, located at the confluence of two rivers: the Busento and the Crathis. The municipal population is of around 70,000. The urban area, however, counts over 260,000 inhabitants....
and 135 km from
Reggio CalabriaReggio di Calabria , commonly known as Reggio Calabria or Reggio, is a city located in southern Italy and the capital of the Province of Reggio Calabria. It is the largest and oldest city in the region and is the second oldest city in Italy overall...
. The city is site on the eastern border of the coastal plain commonly called Piana di Sant'Eufemia, in the middle of the Calabrian coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea, which was created by drying a wide marshy area. The commune's center is located approximatively midway in the isthmus separating the Tyrrhenian from the Ionian coast.
A native or inhabitant of Lamezia Terme is called Lametian (
Lametino in Italian).
History
The commune of Lamezia Terme was formally created on January 4, 1968. Its territory includes those of the former communes of
Nicastro,
Sambiase,
Sant'Eufemia Lamezia. The controversial fusion was intended to create a stronger entity capable of a more powerful economical development in what was considered on of the areas of greatest economical expansion in the late 1960s.
While the purposed economical development arrived, although with variabilities, the area of Lamezia saw the increasing power of the local branch of the mafia,
'NdranghetaThe 'Ndrangheta is an organized crime organization in Italy, centered in Calabria...
. The communal administration was sacked two times in 10 years for mafia infiltrations. The majority of the centre-left coalition elected in 2005 received several death threats.
Nicastro
- Main article Nicastro
Nicastro was a small town in the province of Catanzaro, in the Calabria region of southern Italy.Since 1968 it constitutes, together with Sambiase and Sant'Eufemia Lamezia, the city of Lamezia Terme.- Geography :...
Nicastro's origins trace back to the 9th century, when Calabria was part of the
Byzantine EmpireThe Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on the capital of Constantinople, and ruled by Emperors in direct and de jure succession to the ancient Roman Emperors...
, when a fortress called
Neo Castrum ("New Castle") was created. A great Benedictine abbey, St. Eufemia, was founded here in 1062 by the Normand count
Robert GuiscardRobert Guiscard, from Latin Viscardus and Old French Viscart, often rendered the Resourceful, the Cunning, the Wily, or the Fox, was a Norman adventurer conspicuous in the conquest of southern Italy and Sicily...
. It was for long time a fief of the
CaraccioloCaracciolo is the surname of a famous noble family of southern Italy.Its members include:*Battistello Caracciolo, Italian painter.*Carmine Nicolao Caracciolo, Spanish viceroy of Peru*Francesco Caracciolo, Neapolitan admiral and revolutionist....
family and, later, to the D'Aquino. The city was nearly destroyed after an earthquake in 1638 (more than 100 inhabitants died), and the abbey was turned into ruin. The castle, built by the Normans and enlarged by Emperor
Frederick IIFrederick II of Hohenstaufen was Holy Roman Emperor from his papal coronation in 1220 until his death; he was also a pretender to the title of King of the Romans from 1212 and unopposed holder of that monarchy from 1215. As such, he was King of Germany, of Italy, and of Burgundy...
and the Angevine kings, crumbled down. Floods and a further earthquake followed in the 18th century.
Nicastro experienced the highest rate of emigration during the late 19th and the early 20th century (some 8,000 citizens), as well as after World War II.
Sambiase
The baths of Sambiase was in a famous Roman itinerary
Tabula Peuntigeriana so it was a turistic destination.
Sambiase was created around the 10th century around a monastery dedicated to St. Blaise, from which the city's name derived. It had numerous churches, of which today only five remain.
It Was a famous and important University during the kingdom of Spain.
Sambiase was a most important for a Spanish and Italian economy.
Sant'Eufemia
The current Sant'Eufemia does not correspond to the ancient city location. The most ancient settlement was the Greek Terina, whose ruins are nowadays being excavated. Sant'Eufemia (nowadays Sant'Eufemia Vetere) was created, upon a hill not long after the 1638 earthquake. The current quarter was built in the Fascist era after the drying of a marshy area.
Main sights
- The Castle is today an ensemble of ruins occupying the summit of a hill 320 m high. It was built, according to some scholarshttp://www.lameziastorica.it/castello1.htm, by the Bruttii
The Bruttii , were an ancient Italic people who inhabited the southern extremity of Italy, from the frontiers of Lucania to the Sicilian Straits and the promontory of Leucopetra, roughly corresponding to modern Calabria....
or by Greeks colonists. The current structure dates probably from the Norman domination, although some structure existed at the time of the Ostrogoth king TeiaTeia , also known as Teja, Theia, Thila, Thela, Teias, was the last Ostrogothic king in Italy.Apparently a military officer serving under Totila, Teia was chosen as successor after Totila was slain in the Battle of Taginae in July 552...
. In 1122 Pope Callixtus IIBlessed Pope Callixtus II , born Guy de Vienne, the fourth son of William I, Count of Burgundy , was elected Pope on February 1 1119, after the death of Pope Gelasius II . His pontificate was shaped by the Investiture Controversy, which he was able to settle through the Concordat of Worms...
resided here for fifteen days. Later, the castle was enlarged by Constance of Hauteville and his son Frederick II, as well as by the Angevines. The castle was heavily damaged by the earthquakes of 1609, 1638 and 1783The 1783 Calabrian earthquakes were a sequence of five strong earthquakes that hit the region of Calabria in southern Italy , the first two of which produced significant tsunami. The epicenters form a clear alignment extending nearly 100 km from the Straits of Messina to about 18 km SSW of Catanzaro...
, and subsequently abandoned.
- Eco-museum of Lamezia Terme in Sambiase.
- The Bastion of the Knights of Malta is a massive, well-preserved watchtower built in 1550 by the Spanish viceroy of Naples Pedro de Toledo. It was assigned to the Knights, who had a fief in the neighbourhood. Ruins of several other watchtowers are in the area.
- Near Sant'Eufemia, the ruins of the Cistercian abbey of Santa Maria di Corazzo can be seen. It was founded around 1060. Joachim of Fiore
Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flora and in Italian Gioacchino da Fiore , was the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore . He was a mystic, a theologian and an esoterist...
was an abbot here, and Bernardino TelesioBernardino Telesio was an Italian philosopher and natural scientist.Telesio was born of noble parentage in Cosenza, a city in Calabria, Southern Italy. He was educated in Milan by his uncle, Antonio, himself a scholar and a poet of eminence, and afterwards in Rome and Padua...
wrote many of his philosophical works here in 1554. The abbey of the 40 Martyrs (Lamezia Terme - Sambiase), created in the 9th-10th century, is still active.
- The Diocesan Museum houses an Arab-Norman ivory case (12th century), paintings of 17th-18th centuries and other works.
- The numerous churches of Sambiase di Lamezia Terme are wonderfoul ,the most important is Saint Pancrazio's church.
In Saint Pancrazio's church there are some Mattia Preti's pictures.
Transportation
The central location of Lamezia Terme in Calabria has made it the main transportation hub of the region. The city is situated adjacent to the infamous A3 Salerno-Reggio Calabria Motorway, and the SS.288 State Route runs to Catanzaro from Lamezia.
The railway station, on the main line leading from Reggio to Naples, is a major terminal for goods traffic. Secondary branches connect to Catanzaro and
CrotoneCrotone is a city in Calabria, southern Italy, on the Ionian Sea. Founded circa 710 BC as the Achaean colony of Croton , it was known as Cotrone from the Middle Ages until 1928, when its name was changed to Crotone. In 1994 it became the capital of the newly established Province of Crotone...
.
Lamezia is the site of the
Lamezia Terme International AirportLamezia Terme Airport is an airport near Lamezia Terme, Italy. Its IATA airport code SUF is derived from Sant'Eufemia, the part of Lamezia Terme which the airport is closest to.It is the most important Calabrian airport and is under continuous development...
, built in 1976. The airport has both national and international connections.
External links